Tag Archives: Child Support Prevention

Every Mother’s Day, I gave my mom a gift—the potholders I wove on the loom myself or the ashtray with my picture on the bottom that I made at school. I would hide the present in my closet because my mom was at home, as were most moms in the 1950s.

Could these moms of yesteryear ever imagine that someday many moms would be the breadwinners of young families? Would they have guessed that women might exceed men in the number of college graduates?

A series of reports from the Pew Research Center describes the changes in American families and attitudes in the last 50 or 60 years. One report finds that more young women than young men say that achieving success in a high-paying career or profession is important in their lives.

A second analysis says today’s 18- to 29-year-olds value parenthood far more than marriage; 52 percent say being a good parent is “one of the most important things” in life. Just 30 percent say the same about having a successful marriage.

What would a typical modern mother say about that?—there isn’t one, according to a third publication. Today’s mothers of newborns are more likely than their counterparts two decades earlier to be ages 35 and older, to have some college education, to be unmarried or to be nonwhite—but none of these moms is “typical.” Instead, each demographic trend represents a different group of mothers. Mothers’ circumstances have become more diverse. (See page 9 in the May 2012 Child Support Report for more news bytes about mothers.)

Generational change is nothing new. “Generations, like people, have personalities. Their collective identities typically begin to reveal themselves when their oldest members move into their teens and twenties and begin to act upon their values, attitudes and worldviews,” says a recent Pew report on the Millennial generation. A 2010 survey explains that “the young are more inclined than their elders to view cohabitation without marriage and other new family forms—such as same-sex marriage and interracial marriage—in a positive light.”

The Millennial generation is changing the child support program, too, as child support agencies have begun to adapt services to fit their family circumstances. According to a report from Child Trends, 41 percent of all American children were born to unmarried mothers in 2009. But the majority (53 percent) of children with mothers under 30 were born outside of marriage.

Part of adapting our services is being able to refer parents to other agencies for services they need. Take a look at the article on page 8, which demonstrates how free legal aid services in D.C. are helping moms to achieve a better life for themselves and their children.

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May is also National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month. More and more, we are partnering with other agencies and organizations to help us adapt to changing families. One organization is the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which educates teens about pregnancy prevention. Child support agencies across the country, too, are educating youth about consequences of becoming pregnant at a young age. (Read about some of these agencies on page 3 in the May Child Support Report.)

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Despite generational changes, mothers are central to a child’s upbringing, and the child support program is committed to helping them raise their children and make ends meet. From one mom to another, I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day!